FED: PNG health emergency over in Torres Strait

AAP General News (Australia)
04-27-1999
FED: PNG health emergency over in Torres Strait

By Selina Day

BRISBANE, April 27 AAP - The role of Australian health authorities treating sick Papua New
Guineans was over, authorities said, with the arrival today of a health worker in the
flood-affected village of Sigabaduru in PNG's Western Province.

More than 100 people from the tiny settlement who fell ill as a result of the flooding have
sought treatment in Australian territory in the Torres Strait since last Friday.

The villagers have been crossing 4km of water to the island of Saibai, where they have been
receiving medical treatment for malaria, dysentery and chest infections.

Sixty-five were treated yesterday and 24 on Sunday. The number of villagers treated on
Friday and Saturday was not known.

The villagers became ill after torrential rain which lashed the Western Province, swelling
rivers, cutting villages off from local services and contributing to disease.

Most of the Sigabaduru flood victims were treated as outpatients on Saibai Island -
Australia's northernmost territory - and sent straight home, although four had needed further
treatment at Thursday Island hospital.

Queensland Health said today that from the point of view of Australian health authorities,
the crisis had passed.

"We're not expecting any more (arrivals) today," a spokesman said.

"There's a PNG health worker in the village now and we have provided him with the necessary
drugs."

At the weekend, Queensland Health sent extra medical staff to Saibai to handle the influx
of sick villagers.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Diana Lange said yesterday that from time to time small
numbers of PNG nationals crossed the Torres Strait to Australian territory for medical
treatment.

Immigration procedures were not of immediate concern in this operation, she said.

"These people are coming across and they're receiving care and they're going immediately
back.

Yesterday, the Saibai Island Council criticised the arrivals of the sick PNG villagers and
said Australia was "trying to do other nations' work".

"You can't have sick people coming from another nation and (turning up) on the doorstep of
Saibai," a council spokesman said.

"We don't know what other sicknesses the Papuans are carrying."

But Liberal MP Warren Entsch, representing the far north Queensland federal seat of
Leichhardt, which takes in parts of the Torres Strait, said today Australia had no choice but
to help the flood-affected villagers.

"You could not expect the health workers there to say 'oh look, I'm sorry, you're not an
Australian, turn around and go back and die'," Mr Entsch told ABC radio.

AAP sd/bm/de

KEYWORD: PNG FLOODS DAYLEAD

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